The Final Stand
by SuperTechmarine
Summary: One-Shot. The Orokin Dynasty has been assassinated by the Tenno. Hayden, pilot of the first Warframe, Caliburn and his commander Ryuzaki flee to Titan to prepare a counter-attack. Unaware that the Lotus has sent the recently-completed Mass Production Excalibur-Class Warframes to eliminate them. Hayden dons his Warframe and prepares to face against impossible 9 to 1 odds. M, Gore.


The Final Stand – The Original against the Copies

_Six hundred years before the events of Warframe..._

Against the orange sky, nine vultures circled overhead on ceramic grey wings, their forms humanoid, masculine, muscular, flesh but at the same time machine. A bony horn and chin protruded from their grey, eyeless faces except for a 'seam' where their eyes would be. They were primitive copies of his own Warframe, Caliburn. These 'clones' were grey, instead of white, black instead of gold.

_The Excalibur Series_, Hayden thought,_is complete?_The Lotus had managed to find others then, of equal affinity to the Caliburn Aspect Warframe and named them Excaliburs, he could see it with his neural sensors, miles overhead, carved on their necks, Excalibur Unit-01, Unit-02, 03, 04 up to 09.

He had heard the rumours but had never thought them true. He was the first, the only, the sword pulled from the stone that was the Void, Caliburn, Emperor Arthur Orokin's sword, they named him.

"Kill them," Commander Ryuzaki sounded over the comms, his deep, baritone voice was calm and stoic, betraying no emotion. The little holo-box where his characteristic black and red helmet would be instead showed only white letters on a black background 'VOICE ONLY'. "All of them. Do not show these traitors mercy." Even that statement was without tint of anger.

Traitors, yes. The Warframe Pilots had betrayed the Orokin Dynasty. Hayden had been there at the Victory Parade, watched as they cut the Royal Family (on the Lotus' orders no doubt), all of them his friends, especially little Prince Megure, a boy of eleven, but bright, and eager. He would have made a great Emperor.

Had he lived.

In the chaos, Ryuzaki and Hayden took the few Loyalist Pilots and fled. Now they were on Titan, preparing for a push against the Lotus regime on Earth.

They had underestimated the Lotus. No more than three days had passed since the massacre and these abominations had already made it past the sabotaged Solar Rails and onto Titan's surface.

The Excalibur-Series glided down to earth, landing around him, forming a circle. They crushed orange-tinted snow under their boots and retracted their wings into pods on their shoulders. Staring at him, the Excaliburs all drew their swords, Nikana-class katanas.

Their battlefield was miles and miles of orange ice and snow, dunes to the north, a lake a few hundred meters to the East and Cronos Headquarters to the south, shaped like a Pyramid of white ivory with a golden cap, protecting the Bio-dome under its surface. Where other planets enjoyed full-on terraformation, Titan had to do with these underground bases which could house a million people each.

"Kill them?" Hayden muttered, "Easy for him to say."

Hayden breathed in, and set to his task. He drew his own Nikana, raised it up above his head, concentrated the Void energy into his blade... 

FLASH

A blinding white light exploded from his katana, the Excaliburs covered their faces as the Radial Blind did its work, scrambling their electronics and sensors. _Ten seconds_, Hayden lunged forwards, summoning a burst of energy which lurched him towards Excalibur 01. He slashed and blood sprayed from the first Unit's open stomach, blue snakes spilled from it's belly onto the cold snow, hissing and smoking. He loved that sensation of the blade in naked flesh, the thrill of battle, the adrenaline surging in his veins, the hot blood on his Warframe's face which he felt throught the neural sensors.

The power over life and death.

_First one down,_ The Pilot of the Caliburn Warframe noted in his head, the neural implants accelerating his thought processes by an approximate 500%. _Eight to go._ He didn't bother checking behind him as he launched himself into another dash, this time at Unit-09. He swung the blade upwards towards his neck and up his head went into the air, blood and shards of bone followed in its wake.

_Unit 1, Disabled._

_Unit 2, Stunned_

_Unit 3, Stunned_

_Unit 4, Stunned_

_Unit 5, Stunned_

_Unit 6, Stunned_

_Unit 7, Stunned_

_Unit 8, Stunned_

_Unit 9, Disabled._

Appeared on his Head's Up Display. _Two down_, he noted. The other seven were coming out of their brief blindness and focused on him. Unit 02, jumped up, probably meaning to cut him down from the head. _That was a mistake, son_, Hayden thought, rolling to the right and jumping to his feet while the second unit stuck its sword in empty ground. _A mistake you won't live to regret,_ Hayden cut sideways, severing the Excalibur's hands at the wrists, its facial expression never changed but he could sense its pain, he slashed down on back, severing the Warframe in two equal halves.

_Unit 2, Disabled._

_Three down, _Caliburn thought. Unit 3 learned from the mistakes of its brother, choosing to fight him on even ground. It dashed towards him in a blur of blue, but Hayden parried away its slash, spinned around, reversed his grip on the Nikana and stabbed it through the heart, lifting it up, before pulling it out.

_Unit 3, Disabled._

Unit 4 sheathed its sword and instead pulled its bow from its back, took an arrow from the quiver on its right hip, nocked and waited.

Hayden prepared to parry the arrow, he could have let his shields take the brunt of the damage, but they were unreliable against physical attacks like arrows and swords, spears and other conventional weapons, equally, his armour would be useless, the Caliburn aspect was only insulated against space and small arms, not anything else. Either way, he never got the chance, Unit 6 sneaked up behind him and locked his arms in a Full Nelson, obviously meaning to pin him in place for Unit 4 to loose a full-powered magnetic arrow at him.

Instead of giving up to death as a lesser man would, Hayden dropped his katana and jumped, flipping forwards so that 6 received the arrow in its back instead just as 4 loosed the bowstring. Hayden heard the _thwang_, the stab and the arrow piercing the Warframe. He would have laughed, but he still had discipline. He threw off 6's corpse and dashed forwards into 4, running it through with a fist through the chest, it went through the lungs and the ribs, he grabbed the heart and crushed it in his iron grip. Detecting Unit 5 behind him, he threw 4 into it, before picking up their sword and pinning them to the ground with it. He took up another katana and held it aloft in both hands in the Tranquil Cleave stance.

_Unit 4, 5 and 6 disabled_. The HUD signaled. He wondered where 7 and 8 were.

_Clang!_

Two katanas connected, it was Unit 8. This was it.

To the naked eye, their battle lasted only a few seconds, to him it was an hour. A flurry of slashes and stabs. When he swung left, 8 parried and threw another thrust towards his shoulder, Hayden dodged, grabbed 8's sword arm at the wrist and thrust into its left side with his katana. It went through the Warframe like a hot knife through butter, it was delicious, he smiled.

In the chaos of battle, he forgot about Unit 7. His neural sensors sounded an alarm to his right, but it was too late. His shield was useless, his armour equally ineffective. He barely had time to see what killed him. A Radial Javelin to his left eye. He fell back, but didn't hit the ground, the javelin held him up.

Unit 7 grinned or at least that's what it looked like.

Even without his brain run through, the Warframe switched his body's functions to the CPU inside Caliburn. He saw the Excalibur frames rising from the dead. Unit 8 pulled the katana from its side, while the Warframe's skin reformed over it. Unit 6 stood upwards, even with an arrow through its back. Units 4 and 5 climbed to their feet, pulled out the katana and grinned while their Warframes auto-repaired, knitting skin, flesh and bone back together with nanobots. Unit 3 climbed to its feet as if he hadn't just thrust a sword into its heart. Unit 2 crawled upper body crawled to its lower half and connected itself to it, letting nanobots reattach it. Unit 1 pulled the intesting into its open belly and the Warframe slid like liquid metal over the wound.

They all grinned, extended their wings and climb into the sky. Hayden watched wordlessly as they dove back into him and tore his body to shreds, pulling his guts out, slashing and breaking bone.

There was nothing left when they finished with him.


End file.
